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Monday, August 13, 2012

Back to School Chalkboard Countdown and Another eBosser Video

So we are in big time Back to School mode in our house! My son Jared is going to be starting 2nd grade and he is a little nervous about it. Part of the reason why he is so nervous is that for Kindergarten and 1st Grade, he had the same teacher whom he just loved! Now with 2nd Grade he is about to get a new teacher and he is worried that he won’t like her as much as his last teacher. To get him prepared for 2nd grade and maybe even excited about it, I decided that we needed to have a Countdown to the first day of school.

When thinking about how I wanted to do this project, I knew that I wanted to make something that could be used for other occasions as well. So, my trusty wonderful eBosser helped me to create some bottle cap magnets for the title. My eCraft has been a little lonely since the eBosser came home, so I had to show my eCraft some love too. My eCraft cut out the green vinyl for the letters in the bottle caps as well as the “Countdown” out of the white vinyl.

The very first step was to prepare my surface…do you recognize what it was? It is actually a cookie sheet. I got a three pack of Chefmate cookie sheets from Target and decided to use the smallest one for this project. I began by painting the back of the cookie sheet with some Martha Stewart Chalkboard Paint. While my cookie sheet was drying, I cut out all my vinyl using the Lettering Delights font called LD Mon Cherie. I set those to the side, and set out to flatten some bottle caps with my eBosser.

I experimented with a couple of sandwiches and finally found one that works great with the No More Shims Embossing Mat made by Scor Pal. Want to see how it works? Check out the video below!

After flattening the bottle caps, I used a 1” punch to punch circles from the My Mind’s Eye School Daze 6x6 paper pad. I added one letter to each circle and then using a little Glossy Accents adhered the paper inside the bottle cap. I added an epoxy sticker on top of each one and then once that was dry, I adhered a magnet onto the back of the bottle cap. The cookie sheet is still magnetic through the chalkboard paint. You just want to make sure the magnet is strong enough for it. Once my cookie sheet was dry, I added the “Countdown” vinyl onto the chalkboard and then using my Big Bite punched a hole into the Cookie Sheet so that I could attach my ribbon. I made the ribbon kind of on the long side so that my son can erase the numbers and write in the new one each day.

I just love that when Halloween comes around, I can make a new set of bottle caps that say Halloween to add on the board. Also by using the back of the cookie sheet, the Back 2 School bottle caps can be stored on the other side for next year. So easy!

I think this just may work because when I was taking the above pictures, Jared asked me if he could be in the picture with it, and of course I said YES!